Tourist licence in Andalucía: how to get one, where you can, and the rules in 2026

How short-term letting is regulated on the Costa del Sol as of September 2026, for anyone buying a home they intend to let to holidaymakers. Three sets of rules apply at once. The Junta de Andalucía sets the standards a property must meet and runs the register. The town hall decides whether tourist use is allowed at that address, and several have now closed areas or frozen new registrations. The community of owners has, since April 2025, a vote on whether a home in its building can be let to tourists at all. A fourth layer, the national registration number that platforms began demanding in July 2025, was struck down by the Supreme Court in May 2026. This guide takes each in turn, with the law behind every point linked where it applies. The tax on the rent is covered at the end, and the day-count rules for your own use of the home are in the 90/180-day rule.

The word licence is used throughout because that is what buyers search for, in British or American spelling. In Andalucía there is no separate licence document. The registration with the Junta is the permission, and the code it gives you is what you show.

What a tourist licence is in Andalucía

The rules are in Decreto 28/2016, rewritten in large part by Decreto 31/2024, which came into force on 22 February 2024. They apply to a home on residential land that is offered for a price as tourist accommodation and marketed through tourist channels, which means the booking platforms, agencies and any advertising of the home for holiday stays. The Spanish term is vivienda de uso turístico, a dwelling for tourist use, and the registration codes still carry the older initials VFT.

Three situations fall outside these rules. A let of more than two continuous months is an ordinary seasonal tenancy under the national tenancy law and needs no tourist registration. A home in the countryside is registered under the separate rural accommodation rules. And three or more homes let by the same owner in the same building are treated as a block of tourist apartments, which is a different category with its own requirements.

A registered home can be let whole, or by the room while the owner lives there. A whole home can sleep at most fifteen people, a home let by the room at most six, and no room may sleep more than four. Decreto 31/2024 added a floor-area rule of 14 square metres per person, so a 56 square metre apartment can be registered for four.

The standards a property has to meet

Article 6 of the decree sets the conditions, and every one of them is checked against the home before the registration is filed. The property must have the town hall’s licence of first occupation, which is the document confirming the building was finished in accordance with its planning permission. Every room must have direct ventilation to the outside or to a courtyard, and a way of darkening the windows. The home must be furnished and equipped for immediate use. If it is let in the months from May to September it must have air conditioning in the bedrooms and living room, and if it is let from October to April it must have heating. There must be a first-aid kit, printed tourist information for the area, the official complaints book, clean linen and cleaning between guests, written instructions for the appliances, and a telephone number on which the guests can reach someone at any hour.

Decreto 31/2024 added two further conditions that matter more than the equipment. The home cannot be one that is protected public housing. And it cannot be a building or part of a building that sits outside the planning rules, which includes homes built without permission that have since been tolerated. Those are the two most common reasons a registration is refused or later cancelled, and both are visible in the paperwork before you buy.

How to register, step by step

The registration is a responsible declaration, which is a signed statement to the Junta that the home meets every requirement, made on the understanding that the Junta can inspect and cancel if it does not. It is filed online with a Spanish digital certificate through the Junta’s procedure for tourist-use dwellings. There is no fee for the declaration itself. The order of events is this.

1. Confirm the community of owners allows it. Since 3 April 2025 that means a recorded vote in favour, described in the next section but one. The declaration itself requires you to state that the community’s rules do not prohibit the use.
2. Obtain the town hall’s confirmation of planning compatibility. Decreto-ley 1/2025, in force since 4 March 2025, requires the municipal licence or change-of-use declaration to be in place before the declaration goes to the Junta, wherever the town’s planning rules call for one. In practice this is a document from the planning department saying that tourist use is permitted at that address under the town’s rules. Where a town has closed the area, this is the step that stops.
3. Gather the documents. The deed, the cadastral reference, the licence of first occupation, the energy performance certificate, and a floor plan showing the rooms and their sizes against the capacity you are declaring.
4. File the declaration. It must state the cadastral reference, the maximum number of guests, whether the home is let whole or by the room, the periods of the year in which it will be let, the name of the person or company responsible, and that the community does not prohibit the use. Letting outside the declared periods is treated as unregistered letting.
5. Receive the code and use it. The Junta enters the home in the Andalucían Tourism Register and issues an alphanumeric code. Article 9 of the decree requires that code to appear in every advertisement, on every platform. A listing without it is the first thing an inspector looks for.

You can let from the day the declaration is filed. The Junta can inspect afterwards, and it does. In February 2026 the regional government reported that it had cancelled 13,037 registrations for homes that did not meet the rules, 4,731 of them in Málaga province, and that the register now automatically blocks a new registration at an address inside a zone a town hall has closed.

Where you can and cannot get one on the Costa del Sol

Decreto 31/2024 gave every town hall in Andalucía the power to limit the number of tourist-use dwellings by building, street, area or period, for reasons of general interest set out in its planning rules or an ordinance. Decreto-ley 1/2025 added a second power at article 6: a town hall can suspend all new registrations, across the whole municipality or part of it, for up to three years while it rewrites its plan. The picture therefore differs from one town to the next, and it can change at a council meeting. This is the position as of September 2026.

Málaga city. Closed to new registrations. In October 2024 the council divided its 417 neighbourhoods into three zones by the share of homes already registered as tourist lets. Forty-three neighbourhoods above 8%, including the historic centre, La Merced, La Malagueta, Pedregalejo and El Palo beach, were closed. Thirty-two between 4.53% and 8% could take new registrations only up to the 8% ceiling. The rest remained open. In every open neighbourhood a new tourist let in a residential building has, since June 2024, needed its own entrance and its own services, separate from the rest of the building, which rules out most apartments in ordinary blocks. Then, from 23 August 2025, the council used the Decreto-ley 1/2025 power to suspend all new tourist-use registrations across the whole municipality for up to three years, or until its new planning rules are approved. Registrations already in force continue and can be sold with the home.

Marbella. Open, with conditions in preparation. Marbella has no closed zone and no freeze. In February 2025 the town hall announced a municipal register of tourist lets, an ordinance to stop commercial premises and ground floors being converted to tourist use, and a new general plan that will distinguish residential from tourist use, with the possibility of maximum percentages by area. As of February 2026 Marbella had about 15,400 active registrations, roughly a tenth of the Andalucían total, and no cap on new ones. A well-located apartment in Marbella with its community’s approval can still be registered.

Fuengirola. Open, with the entrance rule. Since August 2024 the council has required a new tourist let to have an entrance independent of the rest of the building, and asked the Junta to cancel around 600 registrations that did not. It reclassified tourist lets as commercial premises for the refuse charge and withdrew a property-tax discount they had enjoyed. Its own study put tourist lets at 9% of the town’s homes, above Málaga’s level, so further limits are possible.

Manilva. Closed along the coast. In December 2025 the council approved a suspension of new tourist lets for up to three years in the coastal areas it classed as under pressure, including El Hacho, Puerto de la Duquesa, Los Hidalgos and Princesa Cristina. The rest of the municipality stays open for now, and the council is studying whether to add San Luis de Sabinillas.

Every other town. Estepona, Torremolinos, Mijas and the rest had not closed any area when this guide was checked. Benalmádena has said it is preparing limits. The Andalucían standards, the town hall’s planning confirmation and the community vote apply in all of them. Because a council can now close areas or freeze registrations at short notice under Decreto-ley 1/2025, the planning department’s written confirmation for the specific address is the check that counts, and I obtain it before a client commits rather than after.

The community of owners now has a vote

Most apartments on the coast, and many villas on gated developments, sit within a community of owners, the body of all the owners in the building or development that runs the shared parts. Ley Orgánica 1/2025 rewrote article 17.12 of the law on communities of owners with effect from 3 April 2025. Starting a tourist let in a community now requires the express prior approval of three fifths of the owners, who between them hold three fifths of the ownership shares, recorded in a general meeting. Before that date the position was the reverse: letting was allowed unless the community had voted to ban it.

Two points follow for a buyer. A home already lawfully registered before 3 April 2025 keeps its position, which is one reason an apartment sold with a registration in force is worth more to a buyer who intends to let than the same apartment without one. And a community’s silence is now a no. Before an offer, I ask the administrator for the minutes of the last meetings and for the community’s stated position on tourist use, in writing. If the community has voted against, or will not vote at all, the home cannot be registered whatever the town hall says.

The national registration number, and what the Supreme Court did to it

From 1 July 2025 a second number was required. Real Decreto 1312/2024 created a single national register of short-term lets, run through the Land Registry, and required every home advertised on a platform to carry the number it issued. Owners paid 27 euros for it and platforms removed listings without one.

On 19 May 2026 the Supreme Court, in judgment 620/2026 on a challenge brought by the Valencian regional government, annulled the registration procedure. The court held that the state has no power to create a national register on top of the regional tourism registers that already exist. The judgment was published in the Official State Gazette and the annulment applies to everyone. What survives is the digital window through which the platforms send their booking data to the Ministry of Housing, and the platforms’ duty to send it.

The practical position in Andalucía is therefore simpler than it was a year ago. The number that identifies your home is the Junta’s registration code. That is what the platforms ask for, and it is what the code in your advertisement must show. Nothing in the judgment touches the Andalucían registration, the town hall’s rules, the community vote or the police registration of guests.

Behind all of this sits Regulation (EU) 2024/1028, which applies across the European Union from 20 May 2026. It requires platforms to check that a listing carries a valid registration number where a register exists, and to share booking data with the authorities each month. It does not cap or ban short-term lets, and it does not tell a country how to run its register. It is the reason Spain built the national register, and the reason the platforms will keep asking for a number.

Once you are letting: guests, tax and the register

Guest registration with the police. Real Decreto 933/2021 requires anyone providing tourist accommodation to record each guest’s identity details and send them to the Ministry of the Interior immediately, and in every case within 24 hours of arrival. Since 2 December 2024 this is done through the ministry’s online platform, SES.Hospedajes, and a management company will normally do it for you.

Income tax. A non-resident owner pays non-resident income tax on the rent. A resident of an EU or EEA country pays 19% on the rent after deducting the costs of the let, such as the community fee, the property tax, insurance, repairs, management and platform fees, and mortgage interest. A resident of any other country, which since Brexit includes the United Kingdom, pays 24% on the gross rent with nothing deducted. For the days the home is empty, the notional income on the property’s rateable value is charged as it is for any second home. The return is form 210. Since the 2024 tax year the rent can be declared once a year rather than quarterly, and for the 2026 tax year onward the filing window is 1 to 20 April of the following year. The wider picture of what a home costs to run each year is in what it costs to own a home in Spain, and the form itself in non-resident tax and form 210.

Tourist tax. Andalucía has no tourist tax as of September 2026. Málaga and Seville city councils have asked the regional government for one, and the regional government has so far declined.

Keeping the registration. Every change has to be notified to the Junta: a new owner, a new managing company, a change in the number of guests, a change in the months of operation, or ceasing to let. When you buy a home that already carries a registration, the transfer of the registration into your name is part of the purchase paperwork.

What this means when you buy

The order of the checks follows the order of the rules, and every one of them can be answered before an offer is made. For a client who intends to let, this is what I establish before we talk about price.

1. Is the home already registered? A code in force, with the community’s approval behind it, is the strongest position a buyer can be in, and in Málaga city it is now the only way in.
2. What is the town hall’s position at this address? Written confirmation from the planning department that tourist use is permitted there, with any conditions such as an independent entrance.
3. What does the community say? The minutes of recent meetings and the administrator’s written statement of the community’s position on tourist use.
4. Does the home meet the standards? The licence of first occupation, the room sizes against the intended capacity, ventilation, air conditioning and heating, and no planning irregularities in the deed or the cadastral record.
5. What are the numbers after tax? The rent the home can actually achieve for the months you intend to let it, less the running costs, less non-resident income tax at the rate that applies to you.

A home that passes all five is a home whose letting income can be relied on. A home that fails one of them is still a good home to own and to use. It is simply not the letting investment it was advertised as, and the moment to know that is before you have paid a deposit. If letting is part of your plan, tell me at the start and I will make these checks part of the search rather than something we discover at the end. If you would like to talk through a particular town or a particular property, book a call.

Dated guidance, September 2026. The regional rules are set by Decreto 28/2016 as amended, the municipal positions are those published by each council at the date above, and the tax figures are the Spanish tax agency’s. Town halls can close areas or suspend registrations at short notice, so the position at a specific address should be confirmed in writing before you commit.

Common questions